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N0  {Z  „  i  J  91  rj 

THE  CRIMINAL  BOY.*  SOME  OBSERVA¬ 
TIONS  BASED  UPON  112  CASES. 

.  V-\  e  t  -VT- 


CHICAGO. 


Let  my  first  words  in  this  brief  paper  be 
words  of  protest  against  a  somewhat  extreme 
modern  tendency  to  excuse  the  perpetrator  of 
any  crime,  provided  he  is  of  relatively  immature 
years.  There  are  organized  efforts  on  the  part  of 
certain  groups  of  well-motived,  eminently  re¬ 
spectable  people,  not  only  to  themselves  excuse 
crime  of  any  sort,  provided  the  perpetrator  is 
under  25  years  of  age,  but  also  organized  efforts 
to  induce  everyone  else,  especially  those  who  ad¬ 
minister  the  law,  to  take  this  same  view.  They 
would  seek  to  have  us  regard  youth  itself  as  a 
psychopathic  disorder,  especially  as  applied  to 
the  male  sex,  though  for  some  reason  they  are 
not  equally  generous  toward  the  girl  criminal 
who  may  have  committed  a  less  flagrant  offense. 

Furthermore,  the  word  “boy”  in  the  criminal 
courts  has  come  to  be  a  term  of  much  wider 
comprehension  and  much  greater  inclusion  than 
is  given  to  it  anywhere  else.  It  is  almost  a 
travesty  to  observe  the  18-year-old  male  as  an 
honest  bread-winner,  almost  a  man  of  affairs  in 
the  every-day  walks  of  life,  in  business,  in  so¬ 
ciety,  while  his  25  or  26-year-old  uncle,  who 
steals  an*  automobile  or  shoots  up  the  town  and 
commits  robbery  with  a  gun,  and  possibly  mur- 


*Read  before  the  Chicago  Medical  Society,  April  19,  1916. 


— 2— 


dcr,  sniffles  and  cringes  his  way  into  the  halls 
of  justice,  begging  to  be  considered  as  “only  a 
boy,”  and  the  judge  who  presides  over  the  court 
is  besought  by  organized  groups  of  people  to 
consider  his  crime  as  only  a  boyish  prank  and 
that  the  perpetrator  thereof  should  be  given  “an¬ 
other  chance.”  And  if  for  good  and  sufficient 
reasons  the  presiding  judge  fails  to  be  moved  by 
any  such  maudlin  sentimentality,  these  same  ex¬ 
cusing  agencies  seek  to  have  this  poor  misguided 
25-year-old  boy  examined  and  if  possible  made 
out  a  “moron”  and  therefore  unaccountable  and 
irresponsible  for  his  criminal  act.  It  seems 
ridiculous  to  call  the  high  school  boy  at  the  age 
of  fifteen  “Mister,”  regarding  him  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  as  a  man,  and  then  six,  eight  or 
ten  years  later  when  he  is  arrested  for  crime, 
call  him  a  “boy.”  There  may  be  and  probably 
are  many  good  reasons  for  a  special  branch  court 
called  the  “Boys’  Court,”  but  it  should  never  be 
forgotten  that  to  justify  its  existence  it  must  be 
more  than  a  “Court  of  Excuses.” 

My  purpose  in  presenting  the  results  of  my 
}  study  and  observation  of  112  boys  charged  with 
crime,  is  to  show  that  on  the  whole,  the  mental 
life  and  development  of  the  criminal  boy  has 
but  few  unusual  features,  that  his  mental  powers 
unfold  in  about  the  same  way  as  do  those  of  the 
boy  who  does  not  clash  with  the  laws  of  society 
or  get  into  trouble  calling  for  court  adjudica¬ 
tion. 

These  112  boys  were  chiefly  inmates  of  the 
county  jail  of  Cook  County.  Eight  were  in¬ 
mates  of  county  jails  in  counties  other  than 
Cook;  four  were  in  the  Pontiac  Reformatory; 


— 3  — 


three  in  the  House  of  Correction.  For  statistical 
purposes  I  am  compelled  to  use  the  word  “boy” 
with  the  same  poetic  license  as  previously  alluded 
to,  i.e.,  my  group  includes  males  ranging  in  age 
from  16  to  25  years. 

Let  me  briefly  summarize  the  results  of  my 

.  v.  1 1 : 1 ' i  .;«•  »  17  it  «•.  li^ MSI 

investigation.:  ,  ,  .  . 

1.  Tesfs  o\  'ifie  Senses— Tim  tests  of  vision  of 
these  boys  incarcerated  in  our  criminal  irfstitu- 
tions  reveal  the  fact^ffiat  9.5  per  cent!  lia^e  de¬ 
fective  vision,  mostly  a  minor  ‘  astigmatism  in 
character.  This  is  not  such  a  ”r eriikrkadle  ’de¬ 
ficiency  to  the  writer’s  min'd  when  he  recalls  IMt 
as  a  result  of  investigations  upon  the  children 
in  the  public  schools  of  Illinois  directed  by  him 
in  the  five  years,  1892-1897  inclusive,  it  was 
found  that  11  per  cent,  of  all  the  school  children 
of  IlTiiloSg  have  defective  vision — and  further¬ 
more  these  defects  of  vision  increase  in  fre¬ 
quency  as  we  pass  from  the  lower  to  the  higher 
grades  in  the  public  schools.  If  the  average 
defect  of  vision  in  children  of  school  age  from 
6  to  16  is  11  per  cent.,  then  the  9.5  per  cent,  of 
visual  defects  in  boys  in  the  jails,  ranging  from 
16  tQ.*Sfe'  years  of  age,  is  not  a  great  variance 

t  ■  i  <  .  r  J.  >  j  j;  .  ,,  n  ,,1,1, 

from  the  average  and  is  really  in  favor  of  the 
jail  boy.  , . t  ,r 

Twenty  of  these  112  boys,  or  18  per.  cent.",  had 
defective  hearing  in  one  ear  or  both,  chiefly  as 
a  result  of  adenoids  or  catarrhal  diseases  such  as 
are  the  sequellas  of  scarlet  fever.  But  at  the 
same  time  please  remind  yourselves  that  19  per 
cent,  of  all  the  children  in  the  public  schools  of 
Illinois  have  defective  hearing  in  one  ear  or 
both. 


The  sense  for  the  perception  of  the  finer  dis¬ 
criminations  of  touch  is  somewhat  blunter  in  the 
boys  confined  in  jail  than  in  the  bpys  outside; 
also  the  perversions  of  taste  are  more  marked.  .  It 
was  not  an  unusual  occurrence  when  applying 
vinegar  to  the  tongue  tip  of,  the  blindfolded  boy 
in  jail  to  have  him  state  th$,t  it  tasted  like  \yhiskey 
instead  of  the  normal  answer  “sour/-  Yet  by  far 
the  (arger  majority  of  these.  112  bpys  correctly 
discriminated  between  sweet,  sour,  salt  and  bit¬ 
ter.  Ap'd  in  passing,  may  I  state  that  in  nearly 
every  case  where  the  sense  of  taste  was  perverted 
an  examination  of  the  boy’s  mouth  disclosed  that 
the  tongue  and  the  mucous  linings  of  the  mouth 
were  covered  wjth  a  foul,  mossy,  yellow  browm 
coating  as  a  result,  ol  cirgarette  indulgence. 

2.  TfsU  pf  Mvyriory.- — \  find  almost  without  ex¬ 
ception  that  these  boys  cpnfined  in  institutions 
have  better  visual  than  auditory  memories.  They 
remember  the  things  they  see  .better  than  the 
things  they  hear.  But  they  also  remember  the 
concrete  better  than  they  do  the  abstract.  For 
example,  if,  after  the  manner  of  the  usual  labora¬ 
tory  test,  I  place  a  series  of  figures  sucbf  ejs  f,  9, 
6,  3,  7,  5,  1,  8  on  the  observation  shutter  fqr  10 
secopds  and  tbpn  cover  up  tjiese  figures  the  boy 
beipg  tested  may  only  recall  four  of  the  eight 
figures.  But  if  I  expose  for  the  same  period  a 
series  of  playing  cards,  e.  g.,  the  four  of  dia¬ 
monds,  the  nine  of  hearts,  the  six  of  clubs,  the 
trev  of  spades,  etc.,  throughout  the  series  of  eight 
cards,  he  will  correctly  remember  at  least  six  or 
seven  of  the  ei^ht  and  in  the  exact  order  pre¬ 
sented.  Within  the  last  two  years  some  friends 
of  mine  in  examining  boy  prisoners  in  the  county 


— 5 — 


jail  reported  that  certain  boys  could  not  grasp  or 
comprehend  number  combinations  aggregating 
greater  than  seven.  That  is,  they  c,ould  add  4 
and  2,  3  and  4,  etc.,  but  could  not  grasp  a,  sum 
greater  than  seven.  Yet  these  same  boys  wheii  , 
engaged  in  playing  the  game  of  cards  called 
“Rhum”  would  add  quickly  and  correctly  such 
humbbrs  as  8,  5  and  7,  in  counting  the  penalty 
cards  remaining  in  hand.  My  point  is  that  such 
a  boy’s  mental  development  must  not  be  rated  or  , 
established  by  his  inability  to  add  or  count  jieyOiid  , 
seven  when  under  the  incentive  of  actual  gslmes 
of  contest  he  is  dble  to  comprehend  number  rela¬ 
tions  many  times  greater. 

In  this  same  connection  we  should  also  recall 
that  it  is  not  only  the  jail  boy  who  has  better  eye 
memory  than  he  has  ear  memory.  The  child 
study  work  ih  schools,  tests  of  200,000  school  chil¬ 
dren  in'  these  Uhited  States,  reveals  that  in  our 
public  '  schools  the  normal  boy  .  has  this  same  1  . 
memory  characteristic.  The  normal  bby  hds  a 
better  memory  for  the  things  seen  than. fop  things 
heard.  He  is  eye-minded  rather  than  ear-minded. 
On  the  other  hand,  girls  have  better  ear  memories 
than  boys,  chiefly  because  the  girl  attends  more 
closely  to  things  heard  while  the  boy  attends  more 
closely  to  the  things  he  sees. 

3.  Powers  of  Judgment  and  Comparison 
Nearly  every  one  of  the  112  boys  charged  with 
crime  possessed  to  the  full  degree  the  power  of 
making  judgments  as  to  values.  This  was  evi¬ 
denced  in  many  ways,  notably  in  their  exercise  of 
the  trading  instinct.  Their  trades  and  dickers 
among  themselves  and  with  other  inmates  revealed 
keen  and  accurate  judgment  of  values  of  articled 


— 6 — ■ 


possessed  and  articles  sought  in  exchange;  indeed, 
the  majority  of  them  barter  with  the  keen  busi¬ 
ness  sense  of  embryonic  merchant  princes.  Their 
judgment  of  danger  involved  in  carrying  out  cer¬ 
tain  predatory  criminal  acts  also  evinces  the  high 
degree  to  which  the  faculty  of  judgment  is  de¬ 
veloped.  To  illustrate:  The  average  boy  crim¬ 
inal  has  been  led  to  believe  on  mere  traditional 
basis  that  it  is  an  offense  against  the  United 
States  government  to  break  open  a  car  seal. 
Therefore,  in  his  depredation,  unless  he  is  old  in 
criirip,  lji£-4^oid£  freaking  car  sea^s,  but  \yill  com¬ 
mit  all  sorts  of  infractions  against  city  ordinances 
and  state  laws.  Why?  For  the  reason  that  to 
him  the  United  States  courts  are  great  impersonal 
agencies  punishing  all  regardless  of  excuses, 
while  the  state  and  city  courts  are  always  capable 
of  being  thwarted  in  meting  out  punishment,  and 
since  such  acts  are  fraught  with  less  danger  the 
criminal  boy  will  break  the  lock  of  a  house  or 
cigaar!  store,  or.  hold  up  a  drug  store  or  saloon,  or 
comrhit  robbery  with  a  gun  upon  a  pedestrian,  or 
murder  the  agent  of  an  elevated  station,  rather 
than  break  open  a  car  seal,  basing  his  judgment 
as  to  such  conduct  upon  his  own  experience  and 
that  of  others. 

4.  As  to  the  Imagination. — In  passing  rapidly  I 
can  oilly  say  that  my  studies  show  that  these  self¬ 
same  criminal  boys  are  deficient’ to  a  degree  in 
constructive  imagination.  It  seems  somewhat 
difficult  for  them  to  picture  the  joys  and  rewards 
of  methods  of  living  other  than  those  that  have 
brought  trouble  upon  them.  They  do  possess, 
however,  more  than  ordinary  ability  in  reproduc¬ 
tive  imagination,  which  in  a  degree  offsets  the 


— 7 — 


deficiency  in  constructive  ability.  They  copy  bet¬ 
ter  than  they  initiate. 

And  last,  As  to  Reasoning. — These  112  boys  as 
a  group  show  no  material  deficiencies  in  inductive 
reasoning.  They  are,  however,  below  pgr  in  rea¬ 
soning  deductively,  i.  e.,  from  premise  to  con¬ 
clusion. 

This  rapid  review  of  my  investigations  may 
suffice  to  reveal  the  basis  of  my  conclusion  that 
the  average  boy  confined  in  jail  is  not  grieviously 
defective  in  mental  power  or  mental  development. 
His  being  in  jail  is  the  “end-result”  of  misdirec¬ 
tion  of  mental  energy  and  the  misapplication  of 
mental  ability.  In  nearly  everyone  of  the  112 
cases  the  predicament  of  the  boy  was  due  to  the 
failure  to  bring  him  face  to  face  with  the  conse- 
quencefe  of  his  act  at  the  commission  of  his  first 
offense  earlier  in  his  career.  The  first  infraction, 
a  minor  one,  was  excused;  he  soon  commits  an¬ 
other  and  more  serious  one,  and  so  on  until 
finally  his  offense  is  so  bald  or  some  judge 
awakens  to  the  seriousness  of  the  situation  and 
the  boy  is  confined  in  jail.  To  illustrate :  a  school 
boy  was  found  to  be  stealing  from  other  pupils, 
from  his  teachers  and  from  the  board  of  educa¬ 
tion.  Intercession  was  made,  no  punishment 
meted  by  parent  or  principal;  he  was  “excused” 
and  the  offense  glossed  over  with  polite  phrase¬ 
ology.  The  enormity  of  the  crime  of  stealing  was 
never  forcefully  presented  to  his  mind.  In  fact, 
be  was  made  to  feel  that  he  did  not  steal  but  only 
“took”  things  and  did  not  really  men  to  do  that. 
Later  he  was  in  the  Bovs’  Court  for  stealing  from 
merchants  in  the  neighborhood;  has  developed 
the  stealing  habit;  is  a  thief,  and  still  excuses 


— 8— 


galore  were  offered  in  the  hope  of  his  escaping 
punishment.  My  contention  is  this:  Always 
excusing  for  crime  makes  a  pathological  per¬ 
sonality  out  of  a  boy  who  at  the  outset  of  his 
criminal  career  was  normal  in  every  mental  at¬ 
tribute  and  would  have  remained  normal  but  for 
j  these  excusing  agencies . 

May  I  invite  your  brief  consideration  to  .an¬ 
other  phase  of  this  study.  There  are  occasiQnally, 
criminal  boys  ttdio  are  mentally  defective.  But 
these  defects  are  best  revealed  by  intensive  in¬ 
dividual  study  of  the  particular  boy  in  question 
and  the  circumstances  surrounding  the  commis¬ 
sion  of  the  particular  crime  in  question  rather 
than  by  any  system  of  laboratory  routine.  And 
do  not  conclude  when  I  say  this  that  J  am  speak¬ 
ing  without  laboratory  experience:  I.f  the  per¬ 
sonal  allusion  will  be  pardoned,  the.  i writer  begs 
to  state  that  he  installed  the  first  psycholdgical 
laboratory  in  this  state  at  the  State  University  of 
Illinois  in  1892;  that  during  the  five  years  he 
was  head  of  this  department  at  your  state  uni¬ 
versity  he  conducted  and  directed  tests  upon  the 
mental  faculties  of  thousands  bf  normal  children 
in  the  public  schools;  that  in  1897  he  established 
at  Kankakee  the  first  laboratory  of  psychology 
in  an  insane  hospital  in  this  coudtry.  This  was 
made  possible  through  the  hearty  cooperation  of 
one  of  your  members,  Dr.  Wm.  G.  Stearns,  then 
superintendent  at  Kankakee.  Later,  in  coopera¬ 
tion  wdth  the  late  Dr.  W.  S.  Christopher,  he  also 
assisted  materially  in  making  the  Child  Study 
Department  a  vital  part  of  Chicago’s  public 
school  system. 


— 9— 


Based  upon  this  experience  and  upon  the  re¬ 
sults  of  the  last  nine  years  of  study  of  confined 
criminals  or  those  charged  with  crime,  I  have 
reached  th6’ conclusion  that  the  routine  laboratory 
methods  have  but  limited  value  in  disclosing  the 
!  mental  development  and  mental  efficiency  of  the 
criminal  bqy.  May  I  illustrate?  A  boy  within 
g  few  months  qf  graduation  from  one  of  the  Chi¬ 
cago  high  schools  was  arrested  for  stealing  rail¬ 
road  property  and  selling  tfye  same.  He  was  con¬ 
victed.  Later  he  $fas  ’  paroled,  gnd  still  later 
was  ye^rrested  fpr  violation  of  his  parole.  He 
Was  id  years  old.  In  the  high  school  he  , had 
'prayed  intellectual  power  quite  above  the  average 
of  his  ^ge  and  race.  When  rearrested  interces¬ 
sion  was  rpade  for  him  and  a  laboratory  examina¬ 
tion  was  ordered  by  the  presiding  judge.  The 
laboratory  report  showed  his  mental  age  to  be 
less  than  eight  years,  and  that  his  acts  should  be 
interpreted  as  those  of  an  eight  year  old  boy ;  and 
this  in  face  of  the  fact  that  the  boy  had  passed 
through  all  the  grades  of  the  Chicago  public 
schools  with  credit  and  in  school  achievement 
was  above  the  average  of  his  age.  For  my  part  I 
regard  the  combined  conclusions  of  the  score  of 
teachers  who  had  been  in  daily  touch  with  this 
boy  in  the  school  rooms,  for  more  than  ten  years, 
as  a  better  criterion  upon  which  to  base  one’s 
judgment  of  his  mental  status  than  in  the  arbi¬ 
trary  dictum  of  the  most  skilled  laboratory  man 
who  put  him  through  an  hour’s  examination  by 
the  Binet-Simon  tests.  These  tests  have  value 
but  reveal  only  a  very  small  segment  of  the  entire 
circle  of  the  boy’s  activities.  We  should  at  least 
not  mgke  claims  as  to  the  infallibility  and  com- 


—10- 


pleteness  of  these  and  similar  laboratory  tests 
that  are  more  extravagant  than  the  claims  of 
those  who  originated  these  tests. 

There  is  also  a  tendency  to  arbitrarily  interpret 
the  findings  evoked  by  the  Binet-Simon  and 
similar  tests.  To  illustrate :  One  of  the  tests 
of  the  higher  mental  processes  of  the  fifteen- 
year-old  which  I  quote  is  this:  in  the  course  of 
examination  the  statement  is  made  to  The  boy 
that  “my  neighbor  has  received  some,f  sihgfu’lar 
visitors;  he  receives  ‘  one  aft£r  dhotfr^h, ‘a  dblitor, 
a  lawyer,  and  a  priest.  What  is  gbihg  hA'  at  my 


neighbor’s?”  The  correct  response,  according  to 
the  books,  is  “He  is  very  ill ;  some  one  is  very  ill 
there — dead,”  and  this  response  is  the  necessary 
one  if  the  boy  examined  is  to  make  the  fifteen- 
year-old  mental  grade.  A  boy  recently  convicted 
of  murder,  when  asked  this  selfsame  question,  re¬ 
plied  to  the  writer  that  the  doctor,  lawyer  and 
priest  were  all  three  there  “to  get  money.”  My 
contention  is  that  in  so  answering  this  stereotyped 
question  lie  exercised  his  more  comj'dicatedkne'ntal 
processes  as  fully  and  as  well  as  if  he  had  given 
the  answer  “illness”  or  “death,”  as  designated  by 
the  book  as  the  only  correct  answer. 

Some  of  the  boys  who  are  the  beneficiaries  of 
these  well  motived  efforts  themselves  heap  ridi¬ 
cule  upon  the  methods  of  those  seeking  to  assist 
them  in  escaping  punishment.  Two  boys  recently 
in  an  East  Sixty-third  street  billiard  hall  or  pool 
room  were  conversing  when  a  third  associate 
entered.  He ,  had  just  been  released  from  the 
Boys’  Court.  He  was  asked  “What  did  they  do 
to  you,  Bed?”  “Nothing,”  came  the  answer. 
“Last  time  they  told  me  I  was  a  moron  but  now 


—11— 


I  am  a  high  grade  imbecile.”  A  little  later  he 
successfully  negotiated  a  difficult  shot  on  the 
pool  table  and  one  of  his  associates  in  compli¬ 
menting  him  laughingly  remarked,  “If  a  high 
grade  imbecile  can  make  a  crack  shot  like  that  I 
am  going  down  to  court  and  get  some  of  the  same 
dope.” 

Two  years  ago  I  examined  in  the  Cook  county 
jail  a  boy  convicted  of  murder.  The  evidence  was 
conclusive.  His  lawyer,  as  a  last  resort,  sought 
an  examination.  He  was  found  sane.  On  leaving 
him  he  suggested,  “Well,  Doctor,  if  you  can’t 
make  me  out  crazy,  can  you  not  at  least  make  a 
‘maroon’  out  of  me?”  He  had  heard  the  word 
“moron”  and  knew  of  it  as  a  term  to  get  out  of 
jail  with,  but  had  not  yet  learned  its  correct  pro¬ 
nunciation.  I  make  this  explanation  that  no  one 
will  think  he  was  using  the  term  as  applied  to  the 
loyal  sons  of  the  University  of  Chicago. 

No  one  will  grant  more  readily  than  I  that  the 
Binet-Simon  and  other  tests  have  a  proper  and 
important  use,  but  within  limits.  In  addition, 
we  must  use  every  recourse  possible  to  gain 
knowledge  of  the  particular  boy  as  related  to  the 
particular  crime  with  which  he  is  charged. 

As  physicians,  as  men  and  women  of  affairs, 
we  must  assist  in  making  plain  to  the  boy  that 
the  laws  of  society  are  as  inexorable  as  the  laws 
of  health;  that  the  violation  of  the  laws  of  the 
state  cannot  help  but  bring  disaster  to  the  guilty 
individual.  That  we  must  impress  upon  the  mind 
of  the  criminal  boy,  the  boy  already  confined, 
charged  with  crime,  that  his  life  in  its  various 
relations  to  society  must  be  readjusted  according 
to  law.  As  physicians  going  in  and  out  of  the 


3  0112  098210948 


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homes  of  our  citizens  we  can  do  large  things  in 
leading  the  boy  to  see  from  earliest  childhood 
that  wholesome  civil  freedom  as  well  as  com¬ 
fortable  physical  freedom  comes  alone  to  those 
who  travel  a  course  in  harmony  with  law  rather 
than  one  that  runs  counter  to  it.  That  violation 
brings  one  in  contact  with  the  rough  edges  of 
stern  law ;  that  this  contact  not  only  wounds  and 
pains,  but  invites  disaster.  As  physicians,  scien¬ 
tifically  trained,  but  broad-minded,  deep  chested, 
large  hearted,  with  a  passion  for  service  of  our 
city,  state  and  nation,  in  behalf  of  the  boys  of 
todair  who  become  the  men  of  tomorrow,  we  can 
and  should  become  leaders  of  thought  and  action 
in  creating  in  the  boys  and  in  their  parents  a 
wholesome  respect  for  law.  With  patience,  with 
devotion  to  calling,  with  breadth  of  vision  that 
perceives  the  final  goal  in  the  evolution  of  the 
state,  we  can,  as  physicians,  accomplish  almost 
as  much  in  curing  the  pathological  conditions  of 
society  that  makes  criminal  boys  as  we  can  in 
curing  the  pathological  conditions  that  obtain  in 
the  individual  patient  who  presents  himself  at 
hospital  or  office.  We  can  and  should  make  two 
blades  of  wholesome  regard  for  law  grow  where 
but  one  grew  before.  In  social  medicine  as  well 
as  individual  physical  treatment,  prevention  is 
better  than  cure.  By  seeking  the  enforcement  of 
civil  and  criminal  law,  and  assisting  in  creating 
a  respect  for  law,  we  are  making  for,  rather  than 
against,  the  mental  health  of  the  otherwise 
criminal  boy. 


